


Just a Twinge

by kijilinn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pregnancy, pregnancy loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 13:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn





	Just a Twinge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnonymousAngel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousAngel/gifts).



It had started with a twinge. Just a little twist at the base of her spine, something that whispered in her mind, something’s changed. When your life and the lives of the people you love the most hinges so critically on your own body, you learn to listen when something’s different. Proxima Midnight had been a warrior so long that anything different in her system was jarringly obvious. So she had paid attention, listening when her body said not to do something, to do something different. She was quiet about it; she didn’t want anyone to worry, least of all her husband, Corvus Glaive. Ebony Maw knew something was going on, though, and she caught him more than once staring at her thoughtfully.

Proxima tried not to worry. Mostly, she didn’t worry. Worrying only distracted you from your goal, from what was important. It wasn’t until nausea brought her out of bed in the middle of the night that she started to think something was really wrong and not just different. “Xima?” Corvus called after her as she bolted for the bathroom. “You okay?”

“Obviously not,” she groaned after the first round of heaving passed. She let her cheek rest against the side of the bowl and closed her eyes. “Ugh.” After a moment, she felt Corvus’s hand on her shoulder and the warmth of his body beside her. “No,” she mumbled, “I’m gross.”

Corvus chuckled and ran his hands under her hair, pulling it back from her face into a loose ponytail that he just held in one hand. “You are not,” he whispered and kissed her shoulder lightly. “Something in the soup?”

“No,” Proxima sighed, then heaved a few more times before spitting into the bowl with a groan. “This isn’t food. It’s something else.” Her husband rubbed her back slowly in circles until she was certain the nausea was gone.

“Something else,” he whispered when she sat back on her knees to look at him. “Something else like what?” Proxima studied his face without answering and his hands came up to frame her face. “What are you telling me, my love?” Without looking away from his eyes, Proxima took one of his hands and put it over her belly. Understanding dawned with the widening of his eyes and his jaw’s loose drop. “You… you’re sure?”

“I’m not sure,” she smiled at him, “but morning sickness is kind of the last straw for all the other things I’ve been feeling. Maw’s been giving me that hairy eyeball, too, the one he gives all the female slaves when they get pregnant.”

“The one where he looks a little cross-eyed.”

“That’s the one.”

Corvus chuckled, then sobered almost immediately, his thumb tracing the flatness of his wife’s belly through her nightshirt. “So… you think?”

“I do think,” she sighed, “and I think you’re going to throw all those thoughts about keeping me safe and away from battle right out of your pointy little head, mister.” When her husband glared at her, she smiled and cupped her hands to his face. “I’ll keep fighting until I become a liability,” she told him in a soft voice. “We both know I can’t stay back when you and the others are on the front lines.”

“I know.” Corvus closed his eyes a second, then grinned and peeked at her through his sparse lashes. “I’m gonna be a daddy?”

Proxima grinned back at him and rested her forehead against his. “That is kind of how this works, y’know.”

 

* * *

 

They hadn’t planned to tell anyone else, but Ebony Maw took Proxima by the shoulders the next morning, his face almost fit to break with his smile. “Congratulations, sister,” he whispered and hugged her tightly. Proxima found herself overwhelmed with a rush of tears. Corvus glared at Maw, who looked sheepish. “Sorry,” he said to Proxima’s husband. “I didn’t expect her to cry about it.” As Corvus collected her and rocked her, Maw added softly, “This is… happy news. Right?”

“Yes,” Corvus smiled. “It’s happy news. Scary, but happy.”

Maw smiled and hugged them both. “She feels healthy,” he whispered.

“She?” Proxima gasped.

“Well,” he blushed and shrugged, “it’s kind of early to tell, but the chromosomes line up for a female baby.”

“Stop eyeballing my wife’s insides,” Corvus snorted and swatted Maw upside the head affectionately. When Proxima started to sniffle again, he cupped one hand to her cheek and hushed her, rocking. “Just pray she’s got your nose,” he murmured and she laughed.

* * *

  
It should have been an easy in-and-out mission. Land on the planet, accept their surrender as arranged, home again before lunch. Everything seemed fine until the woman sprinted out of the crowd screaming, “We will not be halved!” She brandished a knife and Proxima stepped easily between her and Maw, her trident lowered for a blast to end the foolishness.

“Proxima!”

It wasn’t so much a knife as a sickle, a plebian weapon sharpened in secret. It sank into Proxima’s side just below her ribs as another woman collided with her from the side. She could feel it ripping around to the front of her torso, twisting for the maximum damage. Corvus’s glaive was there, destroying her attackers. She felt something wrap around her, lift her off the ground and she reached for her husband. “Don’t move,” Maw’s voice said from her other side, urgent and worried. “Don’t move, sister. I have you.”

“She’s losing a lot of blood,” Corvus said in a strained voice. She could still hear angry shouting and movement, but it seemed farther away now and Cull Obsidian’s voice raged over it all. “Can’t you stop it?”

“I’m trying,” snapped Maw. “We need to leave. Now. Cull!”

“Corvus?” she whispered and immediately her husband’s face came into view.

“I’m here,” he reassured her and stroked her cheek. Beyond him, the sky rolled away as if they were moving and she could see his head bobbing with his steps, but she felt no movement, heard no engine. “I’m here, my love.”

“Hurts…”

“Maw!”

“I cannot walk, carry her, staunch her wounds, and dull her pain all at once, brother,” Maw snarled. “I am doing the best I can.”

“Then I will.” Cull Obsidian loomed into view over her and Proxima found herself smiling as she watched him pluck Maw from his feet as if he was a stubborn kitten. His other hand reached to collect her from the air as she realized Maw must have been levitating her. The movement shot pain through her and she cried out before Maw made a soothing sound and unconsciousness flooded through her mind.

* * *

  
Thanos drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne as he studied his kneeling generals. Only Corvus and Cull had come to his summons and it was clear the smaller brother was distracted, occasionally twitching and looking over his shoulder. “You failed to receive a prearranged surrender,” he growled and Corvus’s head snapped back to attention.

“We were attacked, my lord,” Corvus answered. “Rebels. They were dispatched but not before one of them injured Proxima.”

“A prearranged surrender,” repeated Thanos in irritation. “Not only did you fail, you fled the scene in a panic unlike anything my forces have displayed before. Explain yourself.”

Corvus kept his head low and his breathing became erratic as he searched for words. Finally, he said in a low voice, “My lord. Proxima was injured severely. We… I feared for her life.” When Thanos made an annoyed sound in his throat, Corvus looked up. “I feared for our child.”

Silence spread in the room and Corvus held his master’s gaze without flinching as Thanos leaned forward in his seat, hands folded and hanging between his knees. “Your child.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Proxima is pregnant.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Was.” Corvus bolted to his feet and spun to see Maw standing beside the door, his hands folded behind his back and his head down. His face was streaked with tears and his robe was streaked with blood. “I’m sorry, brother,” he whispered. “I could only save one and I chose selfishly. I chose my sister.”

Corvus stared at him and then launched at the Maw, punching him in the face so the psychic dropped back against the wall and then doubled over when Corvus punched him again in the stomach. “THAT WAS NOT YOUR DECISION TO MAKE!” he roared and kicked up, snapping Maw’s head back as his foot connected. “She is my wife! That is my child!” He kicked again, sending Maw rolling across the floor to lie quietly against the wall. “My child,” he repeated but the fury was leaving him. “You left her alone?”

“She’s asleep,” Maw said softly as he pushed himself up and wiped the blood from his nose and mouth. “She’s lost so much blood, Corvus. She needs to sleep and I couldn’t tell her.” He looked up to meet his fellow general’s eyes. “She will need you and I can’t tell her alone.”

His words sank in slowly and Corvus staggered back a few steps until he came up against Cull’s strong chest, felt his brother’s hand on his shoulder. “I… can’t,” he croaked. “My… my baby girl? She’s…” Cull’s arm wrapped around him and Corvus closed his eyes, his hands over his face as his brother hugged him.

“Go to her,” Thanos ordered quietly. “Now is not the time for reprimands. You have my sympathies, my son.”

* * *

  
Corvus had no memory of traversing the halls of Sanctuary. One moment, he was speaking to Thanos and the next he was in the infirmary, staring down at his wife’s pale, still face. He could hear distantly that Maw was talking to him, but he didn’t listen. He couldn’t understand; the words made no sense. Finally, he shook his head and crawled up into the infirmary bed beside Proxima, cradled her to him and closed his eyes. He wished for death for both of them, an end to this pain tearing him apart and to end hers before she knew it.

“Corvus?”

He could barely even recognize her voice when she spoke, so weak and wispy. Corvus opened his eyes to look at her and tried not to show his brokenness in his expression. Her eyes darted across his face and he knew she could see it anyway. “I love you,” he managed to whisper before his vision blurred with tears. “I never want to lose you.”

Her hand dropped immediately to her belly with a gasp, redoubled in pain as she impacted her stitches. “No,” she whimpered. “No, no… no...no.”

“I can’t lose you,” Corvus repeated, hugging her harder as she shook her head in disbelief and growing panic. “Please… it’s okay, my love. We’re still here. I still have you.”

Proxima looked at him and there was such loss and confusion in her face that he bit his lip hard until he tasted blood. “My baby,” she whispered. “Corvus, our baby…”

“Shhh.” He hushed her as she started to cry, silently at first and in rapidly rising sobs. He held her against him as she screamed into his chest, her hands fisted in his shirt. He pressed his face to her hair and rocked her as she hammered a fist against his side and keened her grief. She was strong enough to break ribs even now and he wondered if he’d be joining her in the infirmary for more than emotional support. It didn’t matter. She needed him and he needed her. They were all they had now.

Movement in the room drew his attention and Corvus looked up as Cull and Maw came closer, their faces long with shared grief and worry. Without a word, Cull reached and stroked Proxima’s hair. Maw put his hand on her arm, squeezed silently. Together, they mourned what could have been.

More than just a twinge.


End file.
